The Sound of Drums
by AlexHarvey42
Summary: A moderately faithful novelisation of Utopia/The Sound of Drums/ Last of the Time Lords
1. Chapter 1

**THE SOUND OF DRUMS**

**Adapted from the episodes Utopia, The Sound of Drums and Last of the Time Lords by RUSSEL T DAVIES**

**Prologue**

Cardiff.

"Cardiff!" exclaimed the Doctor, hopping around the TARDIS console pulling levers, pressing buttons and working the bicycle pump. Occasionally he would gurn in surprise at a readout and give the Spitfire gyrometer a good whack with the toffee hammer.

"Cardiff?" Martha asked, incredulously, face contorted in genuine surprise. After seeing the Aardvark people of Delonis 12 and the Opal Citadel of Metebellis, and with the infinite majesty of the cosmos to choose from, for the Doctor to take them to Cardiff seemed ridiculous. Martha was sure the city was very nice, once you got to know it, but after all it was… well, Cardiff.

"Ah but," the Doctor said with the genuine enthusiasm he got from seeing anything from a solid gold statue of President Schwarzenegger to a group of Nenelalian spice beetles floating down a river on a leaf, "Thing about Cardiff is, it's built on a rift in Time and Space… just like…" he struggled to find a simile she could comprehend, "California and the San Andreas fault. But the Rift _bleeds_ energy. Every now and then I need to open up the engines, soak up the energy, and use it as fuel." He tugged the bicycle chain and was rewarded by a hearty creak from the TARDIS as the engine vents slid open.

"So it's a pit stop!" Martha said, grinning at the thought. Out of all of Time and Space, the service station was in Wales.

"Exactly," the Doctor replied, monitoring another readout. "Should only take twenty seconds," he said matter-of-factly, and then muttered to himself with a hint of surprise, "The Rift's been active."

Cardiff. A man running.

"Wait a minute," Martha said, after a moment's thought, "They had an earthquake in Cardiff a couple of years ago." Something actually happening in Cardiff had been big news. "Was that you?"

Still looking at the energy readout, the Doctor mumbled something about having a bit of trouble with "the Slitheen", whatever that was.

Cardiff. A man running. He was wearing an RAF issue coat, and slung over his back was an army issue bag. He panted with the exertion of his headlong dash.

"Long time ago…" the Doctor reflected, twisting a dial. "Lifetimes," he said, smiling wryly to himself. "I was a different man back then."

Cardiff. The running man in the RAF issue coat with the army issue bag opened his mouth, and yelled, "Doctor!" There it was. The blue box.

"Ready to go," the Doctor announced, just as Martha had been beginning to tire of Cardiff. After all, they'd been there for nearly a minute. "All powered up…" With the energy readout gone, there was something else on the display screen; the TARDIS scanner was showing him an external view. The Doctor froze in surprise.

Jack.

He pulled the dematerialisation lever, and felt the TARDIS begin to shudder as she started to fade with that familiar sound that generations of Time Lord engineers had never managed to make into something more aesthetically pleasing.

Cardiff. The running man saw the blue box begin to fade, and the light mounted on the top started to flash. _Oh no you don't_, he thought, and jumped.

With a spray of sparks from the central column, the TARDIS tilted dramatically, hurling the Doctor onto one of the seats and knocking Martha down. They both struggled back up, holding onto the console as the whole control room shuddered.

"What's that?" Martha asked, seeing the expression on the Doctor's face as he looked at one of the screens. There was another burst of sparks.

"We're accelerating!" the Doctor said through gritted teeth. He'd planned a short hop of seven hundred years to the second Holy Roman Empire, but the TARDIS had already taken them sixteen millennia past that. "Into the future..." Time was racing past faster and faster. "The year one million. Five million. Five trillion. _Fifty_ trillion! What?" His face contorted into an expression of intense bemusement. "The year one hundred trillion? That's impossible!"

"Why?" Martha asked, "What happens then?" She was worried. Nothing ever seemed to faze the Doctor, not for long, and here he was without a clue what was going on.

"Bu…" the Doctor puffed, not believing the readings. He struggled to form the words, unable to articulate the thoughts whizzing through his mind, "We're going to the end of the Universe."

"Doctor!" shouted Captain Jack Harkness, clinging onto the blue box as it tore through the time vortex.


	2. Chapter 2

There was a chime from the Radar screen, and with a glance toward it and away from his work, Professor Yana confirmed his suspicions. "Movement on the surface," he said, pointing, "Another 'Human Hunt'. Gods help him."

Rising from her seat, expression as worried as ever, Chantho spoke, her mandibles twitching, "Chan – Shall I alert the guards? – Tho." Yana shook his head, walking over to the coffee machine in his sparse living area – small table and two worn leather armchairs.

"No, no," he said, "We can't spare them. Poor beggar's on his own." He located the coffee machine – had it moved? Or was he just getting old, his mind playing those tricks on him? "One more lost soul… dreaming of Utopia."

"Chan – You mustn't talk as though you've given up – Tho," Chantho replied, walking over to join him.

"Oh, no, no, indeed," Yana lied, hoping to reassure her. He raised his mug. "Here's to it; Utopia." Chantho smiled, her mandibles settling down a bit. With blotchy blue skin, an enlarged cranium and that mouth ornamentation, she was the most 'alien' alien the Professor had ever seen. Still, she was dutiful, and kind, and quite sharp. The coffee did not inspire such feelings in him, though. "Where it is to be hoped the coffee is a little less sour, hmm?" he said. He motioned to the battered machine. "Will you join me?"

"Uh… Chan – I am happy drinking my own internal milk – Tho," replied the alien, smiling at the suggestion that she would drink such an odd beverage. Her brow furrowed in worry once again – she'd had this particular exchange with the Professor twice today already, and he seemed to have forgotten them.

"Yes, well," the human replied, taken aback, "That's quite enough information, thank you," he quipped, setting down the foul drink himself.

"Professor Yana?" boomed the voice of Lieutenant Atillo over the comm system. The Professor started, and looked up at the speaker. "Don't want to rush you, but how are we doing?"

"Uh, yes," Yana replied, "Uh, yes… uh… working. Yes. Almost there," he improvised.

"How's it looking on the footprint?"

Yana looked at Chantho, his eyes filled with worry of his own. "It's good," he lied, nodding to himself, though the gesture was lost over audio, "Yes, fine. Excellent." He sighed silently, blinking back a tear of frustration, then looked over at Chantho, urging her to participate in the fiction.

"Chan – There's no problem… as such. We've accelerated the Calculation Matrix, but it's going to take time to harmonise – Tho. Chan – We're trying a new reversal process… we'll have a definite result in approximately two hours – Tho."

She looked away from the speaker, hoping for some praise or encouragement from the Professor, only to see he was leaning against one of the control stations, head bobbing slowly, skin pale. He closed his eyes, breathing heavily. They were getting louder. Louder and louder.

"Chan – Professor! – Tho," Chantho shouted, and he realised she'd been asking after him for quite some time.

"Yes! Uh… yes! Yes! Yes, working…" he said, trying to cover his confusion with bluster.

"Chan – It's the surface scanner, Professor," said Chantho, indicating the Radar. Yana turned to look himself. "It seems to be detecting a different signal – Tho."

"But that's not a _standard_ reading," Yana said, with bemusement, "Can't make it out." It looked almost like a box. But that was impossible. How could a box just _appear_ on the planet? "It would seem something… _new_ has arrived."

With a final jolt, the TARDIS had a long last landed. The lights were still dim from the power the journey had taken, the central column providing most of the illumination. The Doctor looked over at Martha, checking she was still in one piece, and then looked up at the scanners. "Well," he muttered, "we've landed."

"So what's out there?" asked Martha.

"I dunno," the Doctor told her, chewing over a phrase he had never had much use for. Martha let out a little cry of surprise.

"Say that again, that's rare."

"Not even the Time Lords came this far. We should leave. We should go. We should really, really… go." His eyes darted over to look at her again, his face a mask of terror. His face split into a grin, and he bounded over to the door. Martha smiled and joined him, running after him as he dashed out, pausing to grab his coat. As he'd told her, time and again, it was a _good_ coat.

They'd landed on a very rocky, barren world, the only distinguishing features being a bit of scrub or a particularly large boulder. It was also very cold, so cold that even the Doctor gathered his coat up around himself to keep in some warmth. He looked over to the left, wondering if there was a way out of the crater they'd ended up in.

Martha cried, "Oh my God!" and ran over to the right, crouching by the prostrate figure of a man. "Can't get a pulse." With trepidation, the Doctor leant over to get a clear look at the man's face. Yep…it was him, alright. "Hold on," Martha realised, dashing back into the TARDIS, "You've got that medical kit thing."

As soon as the door had closed, the Time Lord took a step closer to the dead Captain. "Hello again," he said, looking up and down his prone form. "Oh…" he sighed, "I'm sorry."

Martha ran back out, cradling the medical kit. "Here we go," she announced, crouching back down next to the dead man, after giving the Doctor a shove and an annoyed yell of "Get out the way!" She began to take out various medical instruments, laying them on the ground next to her. "It's a bit odd, though, not very 'hundred trillion'. That coat's more like World War 2."

"I think he came with us," the Doctor told her.

"How do you mean, from Earth?"

"Must have been clinging to the outside of the TARDIS. All the way through the Vortex." He cocked his head. "Well, that's _very_ him."

"What, do you _know_ him?" Martha said, disbelieving, removing the stethoscope she had donned. The Doctor nodded, once.

"Friend of mine. Used to travel with me. Back in the old days…"

"But he's…" Martha said, trying to get her voice under control, "I'm sorry," she continued, sympathetically, "there's no heartbeat. There's nothing. He's dead."

With a gasp like a newborn infant, the body of Captain Jack Harkness shuddered into motion, his arms grabbing Martha's as his eyes snapped open, the eyeballs themselves bulging alarmingly. Martha screamed in surprise as the man regained his breath, then regained her composure, turning to the Doctor, she said, "So much for me!" The Doctor didn't indulge the joke with a smile, however. He just looked down, unhappy with the whole situation.

"It's all right," Martha was telling the Captain, "Just breathe deep. I've got you."

The moment the Doctor had been expecting finally came. Life out of danger, breath sufficiently restored, Jack shifted gears from 'Survive' to 'Flirt'. "Cap'n Jack Harkness," he drawled in his familiar accent, raising a finger to stroke her chin tenderly, "and who are you?"

Martha thought for a moment. "Martha Jones," she offered, once she'd remembered.

"Nice to meet ya, Martha Jones," Jack said, grinning lecherously.

"Oh, don't start!" said the Doctor, rolling his eyes.

"I was only saying 'hello'!"

"I don't mind," said Martha, giddy as a schoolgirl. Shameful, the effect that man had on women. Shameful. Although, the fact that the Captain had literally risen from beyond the grave had probably thrown her off a bit, so the Doctor had to give her that.

Martha hoisted him up, and when she was sure he would be okay let the Captain stand unsupported. A few more deep breaths, and he was fine. After a trip that the Doctor knew was totally impossible.

Jack fixed his gaze on the Time Lord. "Doctor."

"Captain."

The other man nodded in recognition. "Good to see you."

"And you; same as ever. Although… have you had work done?"

"You can talk!"

The Doctor's eyebrows raised, not understanding at first, before he realised. "Oh yes!" he exclaimed, "The face. Regeneration. How did you know this was me?"

"The Police Box kind of gives it away. I've been following you for a long time. You _abandoned_ me."

"Did I?" asked the Doctor. "Busy life. Moving on."

There was a moment of silence before Jack spoke again. "Just gotta ask," he said, "The Battle of Canary Wharf… I saw the list of the dead. It - it said Rose Tyler."

"Oh, no! Sorry! She's alive!" the Doctor told him, happily.

"You're kidding!"

"Parallel world, safe and sound. And Mickey, and her mother!" At this, Jack grinned, and with a cry of exultation grabbed the Doctor for a celebratory hug. They laughed with joy.

"Good old Rose," muttered Martha, who hadn't understood a word of the conversation.

Ambling down a barren path on the unknown planet, Captain Jack has been telling Martha about the battle on the Gamestation. Every twenty seconds, the Doctor would interject with an accusation of inaccuracy, meaning Martha didn't have a clue what had actually happened. "So there I was," Jack continued, after several minutes' argument, "Stranded in the year two hundred one hundred, ankle deep in Dalek dust," he looked over at the Doctor, "and he goes off without me."

The Captain rolled back his sleeve to reveal an innocuous looking device on a thick leather strap. "But," he said, "I had this. I used to be a Time Agent." Martha looked suitably impressed. The old 'Time Agent' line always got the fishes biting. "It's called a Vortex Manipulator." He tapped it, then pointed at the Doctor. "He's not the _only_ one who can time travel."

"Oh, excuse me!" The Doctor said, stopping and turning to point at the Manipulator, "_That_ is not time travel." He began walking again. "It's like… I've got a sports car, and you've got a space hopper."

Martha laughed. "Boys and their toys!" she quipped.

"Alright, so I _bounced_," Jack said, looking slightly annoyed, "I thought twenty first century; the best place to find the Doctor. Except, I got it a little wrong; arrived in 1869, this thing burned out, so it was useless."

The Doctor smirked. "Told you."

Jack bristled. "I had to live through the entire twentieth century waiting for a version of you that would coincide with me. You had some odd ones, didn't you? The one with the cape and the yellow car, what was that about?"

"Alright, that's enough."

Martha, still smiling at the friendly argument, turned to Jack. "But that makes you more than a hundred years old," she said, picking her way over a large boulder.

"And looking good, don't you think?" He laughed. "So, I went to the time rift, based myself there, 'cos I knew you'd come back to refuel. Until, _finally_, I get a signal on this," he pointed at his backpack, "Detecting you, and here we are."

"But the thing is," Martha started, "How come you left him behind, Doctor?"

"I was busy."

"Is that what happens, though?" Martha asked, "Seriously? Do you just get bored of us one day and disappear?"

"Not if you're blonde."

"Oh, she was _blonde_! Oh, what a surprise!"

"You two," said the Doctor, stopping and turning to face them both, "We're at the _end_ of the Universe. Right at the edge of the knowledge itself, and you're busy…" he struggled to find the right word, "…_blogging_." They looked at him sullenly, like chided school children. "Come on."

After several minutes' walk, and cresting a hill, they stopped at the brink of a cliff that seemed to stretch down for miles below them. Far below, in the wide, deep canyon, there were bridges stretching the width of the great chasm, and great buildings scooped out of the rock itself, smooth steps leading up to bold arches.

"Is that a city?" asked Martha, amazed.

The Doctor was equally impressed. "City or a hive. Or a nest," he remarked, and searched for another adjective. He found one he liked. "Or a conglomeration." He liked that. Nice word. Conglomeration. "Looks like it was grown… but look, there." He pointed. "It's like pathways, roads? Must have had some sort of life." He inhaled sharply. "Long ago."

"What killed it?" asked Martha, softly.

"Time. Just time. Everything's dying now. All the great civilisations have gone…" he waved a hand at the black and empty sky. "This isn't just night. All the stars have burned out and faded away. Into nothing. The Universe is an old and dark place now, full of memories of past glories and devoid of anything fresh or new."

"They must have an atmospheric shell," said Jack, "We should be frozen to death."

"Well… Martha and I, maybe," the Doctor ruminated, searching the sky for any features. He looked back down at the Captain. "Not so sure about you, Jack." From the Time Lord's eyes, Jack could see that the Doctor knew.

Martha had been in a reverent silence, trying to comprehend the sheer scale of the nothingness they'd stumbled into. She finally spoke. "But… what about the people? Does no one survive?"

"I suppose…" guessed the Doctor, "We have to hope." He looked at her reassuringly, but she was just gazing at the dead city.

Jack noticed something, and his arm went up to point it out. "Well, he's not doing so bad," he said. They looked at where he had indicated to see a man, a human, unshaven and in rough clothes but definitely human. He was running.

Before they could call out to him, there was a harsh, guttural cry of "Human!" Behind the running man dozens of creatures carrying flaming torches ran in pursuit, growling fiercely like animals.

The Doctor's scowled. "Is it me," he said, "or does that look like a hunt? Come on!" He dashed away down the slope, searching for a way to the running man, Martha and Jack following him as fast as their legs could carry them.

Laughing with the sheer joy of some real excitement, his arms flailing and his legs burning, Jack could only cry out, "Oh, I missed this!"


	3. Chapter 3

Before he'd met the Doctor, Jack would have questioned the wisdom of running _toward_ a man being pursued by a pack of ravening aliens. A few months of travelling with him had definitely changed the Captain's philosophy; he was the first to reach the running man, grabbing him with a cry of "I got you!" and passing him to the Doctor.

"They're coming! They're coming!" the man gasped, scared out of his wits. The creatures following him were now clearly visible; they looked almost human, but their long, matted hair and viciously sharp teeth dismissed any notion that they might be. Many of them had painted or tattooed faces, or huge studs in their ears and mouths. Jack thought they looked like a Grunge band. Still, they were clearly hostile. Almost before he'd resolved to draw it, the pistol was in his hand. He steadied it on one arm and took aim: the one at the front first, then the one with the club…

"Jack!" the Doctor roared, "Don't you dare!" Jack looked back to see that the he was deathly serious. With a roar of his own, this one in annoyance and an unwillingness to break decades of training, the Captain pointed the pistol at the sky and fired three times. The horde of aliens stopped.

With this temporary lull, Martha took the opportunity to ask, "What the hell are they?"

The unkempt looking man merely urged, "There's more of them, we've _got_ to keep going!"

"I've got a ship nearby," said the Doctor, reassuringly, grasping the man by the shoulders so he didn't dash off of his own accord. "It's safe. It's not far, it's over there." He turned to the direction of the TARDIS, only to see another band of creatures approaching from that direction, yelling and waving yet more flaming torches. "Or maybe not."

"We're close to the Silo," said the man, slightly calmer but still shaking, face beaded with sweat, "if we get to the Silo then we're _safe_!"

The Doctor turned to Jack. "Silo?"

"Silo."

"Silo for me," offered Martha, raising a hand.

They ran, the creatures once again in pursuit, until after several minutes they came within sight of a large compound ringed with guard towers and searchlights, all surrounded by a sturdy looking chain-link fence. At the sight of this, the man they had found ran even faster.

"It's the Futurekind, sound the alarm! They're coming!" he yelled as several guards with reassuringly big guns stepped up to the fence, looking concerned.

"Open the gate!" screamed Martha, Jack fervently echoing the sentiment.

The guard at the gate just shouted, "Show me your teeth!" When they reached the gate, Martha a few yards behind everyone else and wishing desperately for some breath to swear with, the guard repeated the phrase; "Show me your teeth! Show me your teeth!" The creatures – the Futurekind, as the man had called them – were not far behind.

"Show him your teeth!" he urged, as the guard looked on, helpless. They did so, confronting the soldier with a row of gurns.

"Human, let 'em in!" yelled the guard, once he'd checked, "Let 'em in!" Another two guards pulled open the gates, and the four of them hurried inside. With repeated cries of "Close! Close!" the gates were quickly pushed shut again. Just as the Futurekind were within a dozen yards of the fence, the head guard shouldered his weapon and squeezed the trigger, letting out a wild burst of fire. Bullets struck the ground at the feet of the pack leader, and the creatures ceased their pursuit and retreated several steps, snarling.

"Humans," the head of the group rasped, pointing, "_Humani_. Make feast."

"Go back to where you came from," said the guard, fingers white on his gun barrel. The pack leader walked forward another two steps. "I said: go back! Back!" He raised the gun threateningly.

Jack turned to the Doctor. "Well," he said, "don't tell him to put _his_ gun down."

"He's not my responsibility."

"And I am?" The Captain gave out a hollow laugh. "That makes a change."

"Canny one see you," the head Futurekind interjected, swaying and pointing again. A larger member of the pack with a spiked collar let out a loud roar to support this. "And hungry." There was silence as he stared at the guards for several seconds, before gesturing at the other creatures with a harsh cry. They cautiously retreated away from the Silo, snarling.

"Thanks for that," said the Doctor, as the guard led them away from the gate.

The human ignored the thanks, pragmatically saying, "Right, let's get you inside."

"My name is Padrafetch Shave-Kane," said the unshaven man to the guard, "Tell me. Just tell me, can you take me to Utopia?"

"Oh, yes sir," the guard said, happily, "Yes, I can."

"Professor?" boomed the voice of Lieutenant Atillo yet again. Yana jumped as he always did, and looked up at the speaker. "We've got four new humans inside." The Professor looked back down, not seeing how this was relevant to him at all. "One of them is calling himself a doctor."

Yana's head snapped back up. "Of medicine?"

"He says 'of everything'."

The Professor looked back down again, thinking, and then realisation struck him. "A scientist!" he exclaimed, "Oh my word!" He turned to Chantho and thrust a Triaxilation Capacitor Matrix made of scrap into her hands, so excited he couldn't form words to tell her to take it. "I'm coming!" he yelled at Atillo, making for the door with speed that surprised him. Chantho sighed.

"I need you to help me," the Doctor said to the man who had greeted them as they entered the Silo and called himself Lieutenant Atillo, "My ship is still out there, I was wondering of you could help fetch it for me." He stopped as the Lieutenant motioned for another officer to hand him some supply forms. "It's like a box, a big blue box. I'm sorry, but I really need it back, it's stuck out there." Atillo was ignoring him, and when he finally handed back the forms, Padrafetch butted in, leaving the Time Lord standing there with his mouth half open.

"I-I'm sorry," he said, still nervous and trembling from exhaustion, "but my family were heading for the Silo, did they get here? My mother is Kistane Shave-Kane, my brother's name is Belto."

"Computers are down, but you can check the paperwork," replied Atillo, turning to the right. "Creet!" he called. A small boy, no more than six years old, poked his head round a piece of machinery. "Passenger needs help."

"Right," said the boy, walking forward with a clipboard bigger than this head, "What d'you need?" Padrafetch stooped down next to him, looking down the list of names.

"A… _blue_ box, you said?" Atillo mused, turning again, this time to face the Doctor.

Not sure how else to describe the TARDIS, he just said, "Big. Tall. Wooden. Says 'Police'."

"We're driving out for the last water collection, I'll see what I can do."

"Thank you," said the Doctor, earnestly.

Martha had been watching Padrafetch and Creet go over the list, and after several read-throughs the unshaven man was looking quite dejected. "I don't think I've got them here," Creet said, pointing at the scrap of paper, "but we can still take a look. Come on."

"Sorry," said Martha, walking toward the boy, "but… how old are you?"

"Old enough to work," he replied, sounding almost irritated at the suggestion he was too young. "This way."

After several corridors of clean concrete and shabbily dressed but still smart officers and men, the travellers were shocked by the state of the inner Silo. Pictures and notes had been pinned up on walls, parents imploring their Gods for some word of their children, husbands and wives seeking each other, and some written in a script that not even the TARDIS could translate. Past these scruffy desperations, there were people living in the Silo's corridors for as far as the eye could see, making their beds and living spaces wherever they could, sleeping on old rugs, or coats, or jackets. Babies wailed in the distance.

Creet walked through all of this with an accustomed ease, knowing instinctively where to put his feet without tripping over a sleeping man's legs, or standing on someone's last loaf of bread. The Doctor, Jack and Martha stumbled along behind him, with Padrafetch a little way ahead, looking at everyone he saw, desperate.

"Is there Kistane Shave-Kane?" Creet called out in a surprisingly loud voice, "Kistane and Belto Shave-Kane? I'm looking for a Kistane and Belto Shave-Kane…"

"The Shave-Kanes, anyone?" Padrafetch said, looking from left to right. Creet echoed the cry, but no one knew. They struggled forward.

"It's like a refugee camp," said Martha, as they picked their way over a group of sleeping women and past a man holding a baby in each arm while his wife cooked a potato over a tiny gas stove.

"It's _stinking_ of…" Jack began, and stopped when he saw the looks he attracted. "Oh, sorry," he said, as a grim looking man in a grey cardigan scowled at him. "No offence, not you." The man nodded and lurched off, muttering to himself.

"Don't you see though?" said the Doctor, grinning exuberantly, "The ripe old smell of Humans. You survived! Oh, you might have spent a million years evolving into clouds of gas… and another million as downloads. But you always revert to the same basic shape; the fundamental Human. End of the Universe, and here you are." He grabbed Martha's ponytail, making her jump, and exclaimed, "_Indomitable!_ That's the word." She smiled at him, bemused by his constant optimism. "Indomitable!"

"Is there a Kistane Shave-Kane?" Creet called yet again, and this time a woman stood up from next to a cardboard box.

"That's me," she said, and when she saw Padrafetch she inhaled sharply, disbelieving.

"Mother?" he said, smiling, and ran forward.

"Oh my Gods," she said, "Padra!" They hugged, and another man came up shake Padrafetch by the hand. He greeted him with a cry of "Belto!" and gave him a hug as well.

Martha smiled. "It's not all bad news." No one was listening; the Doctor was using the sonic screwdriver on some locked door he'd found – and locked doors made him antsy. Jack had strolled over to a big, strapping, blond man in a scruffy cardigan and rumpled beige shirt.

"Cap'n Jack Harkness," he said, smiling, offering the man a hand, "and who are _you?_" The grimy Adonis smiled and took his hand, shaking it firmly. Jack's eyes twinkled.

"Stop it…" the Doctor said, warning. Jack turned round to complain, but before he could form words the Time Lord continued. "Give us a hand with this." Jack sighed and joined the Doctor, who pointed at the door. "Half deadlocked. See if you can override the code. Let's find out where we are…" Jack started punching in numbers, and after a short while the door slid open, revealing…

… a sudden drop. The Doctor grabbed the doorframe to avoid falling, as Martha and Jack cried out in surprise at the sheer size of the room they had opened a door into; it stretched for miles above them and miles below, filled with steam and baking hot. In the centre was a massive rocket, so huge it was barely recognisable.

"Gotcha," said Jack, pulling the Doctor back into the corridor.

"Thanks."

"How did you ever cope without me?"

"One day at a time."

"Now _that_," Martha said, approvingly, "is what I call a rocket."

"They're not refugees…" the Doctor said, smiling, "they're passengers."

"He said they were going to 'Utopia'," Martha reminded him.

"The 'perfect place'." the Doctor said, "A hundred trillion years, and it's the same old dream." He looked down at the bottom of the rocket, which was barely visible. "Do you recognise those engines?"

"No…" said Jack, "Whatever it is, it's not rocket science." He smirked – he'd been wanting to say that for a hundred and fifty years. "But it's hot, though."

"Boiling."

After a few seconds the oppressive heat of the launch tube was too much, and they closed the door, stepping back into the Silo corridor.

"But if the Universe is falling apart," asked the Doctor of no one in particular, "Then what does Utopia _mean?_" Jack had been about to say something sarcastic when an old man in a waistcoat and shirt that looked a hundred trillion years out of date wandered over to them, smiling, and began pointing first at the Doctor, and then at the Captain. After several rounds of this he finally settled on Jack.

"The Doctor?" he said.

"That's me," said the Time Lord, as Jack raised a hand to point at him.

"Ah…" said the old man, and then grabbed one of the Doctor's arms exuberantly. "Oh, _good! _Good!" he cried, happily, tugging the Time Lord down the corridor. "Good!" he repeated. "Good, good! Good good good good good. Good." The Doctor grinned, Martha assuming he was happy to find someone as relentlessly _keen_ as he was.

Still being pulled along by the old man, he turned to face his two companions. "It's good, apparently," he said, and grinned again.


End file.
